Mike Visaggio
Starship Universe
Long live the Moog.
The charming, chirpy sound of the Moog keyboard is a thing of beauty, and something that you rarely hear in rock music today. On “In the Nazarene Church,” Mike Visaggio dusts off his own Moog for some retro-futuristic wizardry that’ll have you jumping up and down. Christian radio probably won’t touch it, although rarely has a song about God was given such a colorful, pulsating beat.
The lost art of prog is Visaggio’s vision, and he threads the album together with his love for God, outer space, and music itself. If you think deep enough, those subjects are closely related, and Visaggio gives them equal attention and affection. This is no dull, droning progressive rock experiment; Visaggio has a pop soul, and dynamic hooks are everywhere.
In fact, this could be a prog LP for those who despise the genre. Visaggio is no pretentious egghead. He has no reservations about having fun, best exemplified on his Richard Strauss homage, “2001: Also Rocked Zarathustra.” Visaggio transforms the classical piece best known from the Stanley Kubrick movie into a bracingly energetic space synth jam. More delights await those who enter Visaggio’s interstellar abode.
Mike Visaggio: http://www.mikevisaggio.com
